The Great Siege of Malta

by Allen, Bruce Ware

  Valette and the council discussed the matter with Bajada and Lascaris present. Lascaris noted that the Ottomans were at their most lax in the depression below Mount Salvador, opposite to the Post of Castile. Even a force as large as the Piccolo Soccorso might, with the grace of God, be able to follow the coastline, skirt the enemy pickets, and be brought to safety. Bajada could not do this alone; he needed guides who could navigate the terrain at night and keep a line of men this large moving quickly and quietly. Lascaris himself volunteered. He might not know the land as well, but he did have a native’s command of the Turkish language and the army’s habits, in case they were challenged. Others were quietly lined up, though not told what for—Valette could not risk word leaking out—then sent off to Mdina under Bajada’s command.

  In short order, Robles assembled his troops and, just an hour before sundown on July 3, they began to march. Seven hundred men, many armored and some on horse—the silence could not have been total.4 The moon was entering its first quarter, too dark to be seen clearly. The closer they came to Birgu, the more Turks were in evidence on the ground. Several times the column passed “within a stone’s throw of the Turkish line”; not once did any sentry or watchman challenge them.5 The sheer unlikelihood of a Christian relief force was its protection. What the Ottoman sentries could not imagine, they would not investigate. Robles was not taking undue chances, however, and before he got much closer, he had his riders dismount and the horses sent back to Mdina. It was to be pure marching from here on in.

  Some six hours had passed from the time Robles and his men had left Mdina. With just two hours of darkness left, they arrived on the outskirts of Birgu and filed north to the rendezvous point at the water’s edge. One of the guides descended into the glittering surface and silently disappeared toward the defenders’ bolt hole. Several minutes passed before the first of six longboats glided into view and settled near the shore. Then they began the steady feeding of the Christian defenses. For the next hour the boats brought the six hundred on the final leg of the journey, just as they had carried men back and forth from Fort St. Angelo to Fort St. Elmo. Their luck held to the end, when Robles allowed himself to be the last man out of 521 ferried across.6

  Those members of the expedition leading the horses back to Mdina were not so lucky. Ten or twelve men under the command of Commendatore Fra Girolamo di Gravina, knight of Catania and Capitano d’Arme of Mdina, seem to have lost their way in the dark.7 They were discovered at first light and hauled before Mustapha. Gravina confirmed that the unfamiliar pennants now flying from the walls opposite were the calling cards of new soldiers, proof that Europe had not abandoned Malta as it had Rhodes and Djerba. It can be argued that the Piccolo Soccorso, more than any other strategic decision, determined the outcome of the entire siege. Even Balbi—who credits God rather than Don Garcia—notes that, had they not arrived, “Birgu would have been taken at the next assault.”8

  The Ottoman response to the Piccolo Soccorso was a cannonade aimed at Birgu proper. The purpose was pure terror. It also meant repair work had become more dangerous. Valette directed that the Order’s slaves take this duty, both to keep Christians out of danger and in the hope that the Ottomans might be reluctant to fire on their fellow Muslims (who were, in addition, expendable mouths for Valette to feed). It was a vain hope. Even assuming he knew the sappers were Muslim, Mustapha was not going to spare any lives so long as victory was on the line. Besides, Muslims killed in this manner would go straight to paradise. The benefits were most likely lost on the slaves themselves, some of whom, to avoid the assignment, chose to cut off their own ears. (How effective this tactic was is not, unfortunately, recorded. Given Valette’s nature and the desperation of the defenders, one can guess not very.) Over five hundred Muslim slaves (los pobres) would die under the Ottoman guns.9

  As for the Christian response to the Piccolo Soccorso, Don Garcia wrote that “the Grand Master’s joy was such that I cannot write about it without tears.”10 The new arrivals were, however, a mixed blessing. Although they had brought themselves and their weapons, they had not brought much in the way of provisions, and no water. Those still alive behind the walls, already headed toward strict rationing, were now allotted that much less, a serious problem on a dry, hot summer island with no wells, and with the rainy season still two months away. Geofrè de Loaysa and Iacomo Coloroti had still come up with no new sources.

  If morale was low at this time, there was no record of it. Certainly the men of the Piccolo Soccorso were upbeat. Fresh and full of high spirits, they confronted the Ottomans the first day and “killed a great number.”11 The armories were running full tilt, forges blazing in the creation of more weaponry, slaves put to work making the slow matches for the arquebus. The bombardments became routine, and one can become accustomed to routine, however frightful. Slaves and civilians scrabbled at the collapsed houses and other unoccupied shelters in Birgu and recycled the stones and roof tiles to fortify the walls. It was in the open-air lee of these walls that many of the dispossessed civilians now slept.

  Mustapha, however, was just warming up. On July 6, even as he was sending word out to Modon that he was greatly concerned about his diminishing supply of powder and cannonballs and ordered that more be sent, along with fresh fruit and “other things,” he was, as Lascaris had promised, pushing six Muslim vessels deep inside Grand Harbor, outside gun range.12 The next day there were six more and the day after more still. But forewarned was forearmed, and Valette had opened the question of how to improve Senglea’s shoreline defenses, and fast. The walls, only about ten feet high, fronted onto a stretch of flat beach. They held two gun emplacements capable of crossfire on the shoreline. How well this could hold off a massive, dedicated, and sustained assault was unknowable. In thirty years, no invaders had ever gotten this far.

  A partial solution came from an aging captain who had clearly read his Alberti. This man advised an adaptation of the chain barrier that protected the inlet between Senglea and Birgu. The shoreline did not possess a pair of anchor points from which to string a chain across; it did, however, have sand. Sappers should be able to get out into the water, drive wooden piles deep into the silt and mud, and settle the ends just below the water level. It would then be merely a question of stringing a barrier chain from post to post.

  The difficulty was in the doing. The Ottomans had arrayed sharpshooters on the far shore of Corradin, six hundred paces away, too close for anyone to expose himself in safety. Construction would have to take place at night. Maltese, adept at water work, again came forward. Under cover of darkness they dragged the piles out fifteen feet from shore, and in a feat of astonishing strength and virtuosity, somehow drove them deep into the seabed, underwater, at fifteen- to twenty-foot intervals. On the final day they mounted the chain, and where the sand or silt was insufficient and the space between the posts exceeded fifteen feet, they tied the chain in place with floating logs. A barrier now stretched between the point of Zanogara on Senglea’s tip to the so-called Post of Robles at the wall.

  The Ottomans had monitored this painstaking labor and the men who had bobbed in the water and nighttime chill, sinking the posts and stringing the links. The day after that work was finished, the same Maltese heard the sharp tap-tapping of metal on metal. Ottoman swimmers had crossed the narrow strait and were taking axes to the poled chain. The demolition team was working in full daylight and under the protection of Ottoman sharpshooters, who would pick off gun crews, making certain that Christians did not fire on the sappers.

  The gunners may have been cautious, but the men who had installed the chains were not going to let their hard work be destroyed without a fight. Four of them grabbed knives, rushed out a sally port, ran across the strip of land between wall and water, plunged in, and headed straight toward the Turks.

  There followed a series of fierce hand-to-hand struggles. Steel blades and wet skin glinted in the sun, and dark water turned a shade of purple as the Maltese and Ottomans began to draw blood. Me
n slashed and gouged, held their opponents under the surface, burst up and gasped for air, were pulled down again, never certain that they would ever come up again. The Ottoman sappers realized that their choice was between destroying the defenses or preserving themselves. In the end, they paddled back to their own line, the poles and chains remained as they were, and the Maltese returned to Senglea and safety. Not one of the Maltese was injured, testimony to their skills as swimmers and as fighters.

  Later that day, the Ottomans made one more attempt on the chain. This time a single Ottoman swimmer carried a hooked line to the chain, threw it across, and returned to his comrades. The cable was attached to a winch, the purpose of which was to pull out the entire line with the mechanical advantage it conferred. A lone Maltese ran across the short beach, swam out to the chain, cut the cable, and the Turks never tried again.

  Ottoman records of July 11 cite one Salih ben Mahmud as having “rendered outstanding services by cutting one of the booms laid by the infidels in the sea in front of the suburb of the Malta fortress,” for which action he was duly rewarded.13 The Ottomans recognized bravery and honored those who demonstrated it, whatever the final outcome.

  Meanwhile, in sight and still out of range, the number of galleys kept growing.

  19

  BRAVI D’ALGIERI

  I don’t know if the likeness of Hell could be more accurately described than by putting on canvas or recording on paper this crude, horrible, frightening, and cruel fight.

  Bosio

  While the Maltese were installing their maritime chain and accommodating the men of the Piccolo Soccorso, the Ottomans were welcoming reinforcements of their own, chief among them Hassan ben Khairedihn, also known as Barbaroszade (son of Barbarossa), beylerbey of Algiers, son of a Moorish woman from Granada and of Barbarossa himself. Hassan seemed to have inherited the better part of his father’s abilities. Suleiman named him to his post at Algiers two years before his father’s death in 1546, which post he held on and off for ten years. When not in Algiers, Hassan was a kind of special envoy of the Grande Porte. Suleiman dispatched him repeatedly to outposts in North Africa with an eye to keeping Ottoman protectorates from becoming too free-spirited.

  Now Hassan and his lieutenant, the Greek renegade Candelissa, another veteran of Prevesa, rowed into Grand Harbor with twenty-five hundred Algerian corsairs, so-called bravi d’Algieri.1 If Hassan carried his authority over them lightly, it was because he, just like Barbarossa, just like Turgut, just like Uludj Ali, had little choice. Corsairs were men of some independence and a great deal of élan, men who followed their own inclinations, men who carried themselves with a swaggering confidence that spilled over into arrogance. They wore the trophies of their thievery, the bright and rich clothing and jewel-studded weapons, and would follow a commander only if he had a good chance of obtaining more. Hassan voiced his regrets that they had not arrived earlier, and hoped that they would have the opportunity to perform “something noteworthy.”2

  Mustapha had just the thing. He invited Hassan to consider Fort St. Michael, bulwark of Senglea. High walls, a low ditch, strong defense works. The prospect doesn’t appear to have alarmed Hassan, and he and his men joined with Mustapha in preparing for the assault. It would begin, as usual, with bombardment, two days and two nights’ worth, starting on July 12. When cannons finally did retire for the night, their sound was replaced by a full-voiced cleric who began a chant to which others would reply with shouting and screaming “con gran vozeria y gritos monstruosos.”3

  In the predawn hours of July 15, the Ottoman forces could be heard across French Creek preparing for battle. Their imams had been chanting the entire night, inspiring their own, unnerving their enemy. One hundred boats of many sizes, padded with sacks of wool and cotton against gunfire, were lined up on shore opposite the Senglea peninsula.4 On board, the attacking force was ready, three thousand Ottoman troops and the cream of Hassan’s army, “not a man among them who was not dressed in scarlet tunics, cloth of gold, cloth of silver, crimson damask, carrying muskets of Fez, scimitars of Alexandria and Damascus and fine bows.”5 Smaller vessels elbowed their way through the ranks of larger and pulled up in front of the line.6 The boats carried imams, “men with very long beards,” “strangely clothed, wearing large green hats, and many holding open books.”7 To the accompaniment of kettledrums, bagpipes, and tambours, the readers now stood up and faced the attack force and read out suitable Koranic verses, which Christians dismissed as fortune-telling: “Avian echado las suertes.”8

  The prayers came to an end. The imams, superfluous to any actual fighting, returned to shore. There was a pause, a signal, then the oarsmen dipped their long oars into the water and began to pull, propelling the boats across the water, gaining speed the while. Cannon fired on them and sank many, but not enough. Those that made the passage ran straight into the chained logs, hoping to break the barrier and eventually reach the walls with their feet dry. It didn’t happen. No matter. Led by Candelissa, the Muslims poured out of the boats and into the water and, waist deep at best, sloshed their way toward the Christian shore, shouting all the while.

  Besides the ranks of arquebusiers lining the relatively low walls of Senglea, the defenders had one advantage: two repurposed naval guns that together from their single embrasure covered the traverse and which, by firing sequentially, could slaughter an enemy en masse. Don Jaime de Sanoguera, nephew of Captain Don Francisco de Sanoguera, was deputed to ensure that the two guns would fire unimpeded.

  The guns failed to fire at all. Balbi, who was present at the wall, claims there was no time, but also notes that “some say” the failure was the gunner’s fault.9 The Algerians were able to cover the space between the water and the wall with few casualties. There were other, smaller guns, but even their combined effect was negligible against the oncoming tide. Once having arrived at the base of the walls, the Algerians set ladders firmly in the ground, then arced them up over and against the low-lying defense works. Muslim arquebusiers at the base of the wall fired upward to clear any defenders who dared put their heads out beyond the wall’s edge, then the first of the corsairs scrambled upward into a thicket of sword and pike and axe.

  Bad luck continued to dog the Christians. Before the battle had begun, thirty thousand incendiary grenades had been distributed to the various front lines.10 A soldier named Ciano, unpracticed with the weapon and presumably agitated by the approaching enemy, held his spluttering grenade right next to a basket of more incendiaries. A stray spark or drop of flaming naphtha landed in the container and set off the entire store into a sudden bonfire, seriously burning Ciano and several of his comrades, and depriving the Christians of more weapons than they could afford to lose. They tried to make up for it with stones, apparently to some good effect—Balbi says better than had they used only incendiaries—but inevitably, through tenacity and sheer force of numbers, the Algerians were able to get onto the wall. Now arrows, arquebus, and incendiaries largely gave way to knives, rocks, and eventually even fists.

  Don Francisco, intent on inspiring his outnumbered men, stood at the very edge of the wall, as close as he could to the fight, dressed in bright armor—a natural target. A bullet struck his breastplate. He fought on. A second bullet, fired from the base of the wall, threaded a chink in his armor, entered his groin, and killed him. Rejoicing Muslims now tried to drag this high-ranking corpse from the parapet as a grim trophy. Balbi and others were just as determined not to let them. The result was a grisly tug-of-war, Spaniards pulling his arms and Muslims his legs, which ended with the Spaniards keeping the body of their commander, the Algerians, his shoes.

  In other spots, the Algerians had reached the top of the wall. The question then became, could they hold on and head inward?

  As Candelissa was leading his men onto the western walls, Hassan had opened the second phase of the attack against the landward-facing walls of Fort St. Michael. Robles, commanding the defense, had his eye on the flat shoreline before him and watched as Has
san launched a sea of eight thousand white-robed Algerians.11 These men swept forward with shouts and yells, oblivious to the steady fire Robles’s men were laying down upon them. Here and there along the wall, grapeshot and chain tore great holes in the tightly packed masses of oncoming attackers, holes that were quickly filled as the Muslims kept on coming, stumbling over the bodies of comrades, some dead, some wounded. Commanders were as much at risk as foot soldiers. Piali Pasha had mounted a horse to oversee the course of the battle. Artillerymen on Fort St. Angelo saw him and fired. They missed, but “the shock waves lifted the turban from his head and threw him on the ground, and he remained stunned for several days.”12

  Those Algerians who first reached the foot of the wall planted scaling ladders, longer for the greater height of Fort St. Michael, and began the suicidal first climb. From atop the wall, men poured thin streams of hot pitch and Greek fire on those below, and the screams changed from battle cries to agony as their flesh began to burn. Those who made it up the ladders then faced an armory of cold steel: longswords, pikes, and knives, all slashing and thrusting at the intruders. Weapons began to hit their marks, blood began to stain the outer wall scarlet in splotches and streaks and rivulets. The defenders kept the ramparts free of the enemy, and yet despite this the human tide just kept on coming.

  The enemy was now swarming on two sides of the peninsula, and all Christian soldiers and by now civilians who could be spared were present, firing arquebuses, lunging and gouging with blades, dropping stones over the walls, and even so just barely holding the line.

  And then Mustapha launched his third and final line of attack.